toronto presentation - 07

Social Media for Brand Awareness: Implementing the Technology Acceptance Model to Examine the Attitudes in the Architectural Engineering Business

31st International Business Research ConferenceRyerson University - Toronto

Dr. Oday Aswad Mobile: +1 (613) 276 1391; +971 50 3156987

email: [email protected]

The Intent of This Research

To examine… the attitudes of marketing managers Towards… incorporating social media

Into… the business of Architectural Engineering In… Dubai

Because… this business relies on Brand Awareness and networking for marketing, which social media can amplify via the high speed of transfer and viral capability of reaching.

The IndustryArchitectural Engineering (Arch/Eng.)

The Marketing ActivityBrand Awareness

The Suggested ToolSocial Media

The Managerial Attitude

Managers apply the visions or the leaders. Managers are the most influencing in the decision making process. Kotterman (2006)

“Managers’ decisions depend great deal on their own perceptions of risks and order of predictability of events”. Alrafi (2009, pp. 49-54)

Managers risk-averse and resource oriented. They organize, control, recruit the staff and put the budget. Mintzberg (1973)

How managers should Re-Think their way to deal with social media.

To explain the influence on the managerial attitude towards social media.

To survey the selected sample of Arch/Eng. Firms’ managers in Dubai.

To select & develop a model that can assist to examine the attitude of Arch/Eng. managers.

To summarize and classify perceived risks and benefits Arch/Eng. Managers to integrate social media into business.

The Research Agenda

The Literature Review

• Risks – Benefits Analysis• Risks & Benefit categories based on Past literature of the

Arch/Eng. Business

Perceived Risks

Technical & Operational

Social & Cultural

Legal

Perceived Benefits

Brand Awareness

Network Expansion & Faster Reachability

Client & Audience Management

Security & Privacy

Reputational

The Literature Review• Selecting & Developing the Research Model

• Attitude is the output, similar inputs & pervious managerial usage

1- Theory of Reasoned Action – TRA2- Theory of Planned Behavior - TPB3- Technology Acceptance Model - TAM4- Technology Acceptance Model Two - TAM25- Technology Readiness Index – TRI6- The Technology Readiness Acceptance Model – TRAM7- The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology – UTAUT

The Research Methods

• Technology Acceptance Model - TAM• The Original Model

Technology Acceptance Model – TAM by Davis et al. (1989)

Davis’s model focused on “Perceived Usefulness and perceived Ease of Use as fundamental determinants”

Perceived Ease of Use

Perceived Usefulness

External Variables

The Attitude The Intention

The Literature Review

• Risks – Benefits Analysis• Suggested Risks categories based on influence on

the Arch/Eng. Business

Perceived Business Risks

Reputational

Security

Indirectly influencing the managerial Attitude

Directly influencing the managerial Attitude

Legal

Perceived Operational Risks

Technical

Operational (Time, cost and performance)

The Research Methods• Technology Acceptance Model - TAM

• Related Extensions

Extended TAM model by Choi and Chung. (2013)

Perceived Social Capital

Subjective Norm

Intention to Use Social Media



Perceived Risk

Intention to Use



Privacy

Performance

Financial

Time

Psychological

Social -Reputational)

Perceived Risk Facets by (Crespo, et al., 2009)

The Proposed Model

Davis (1989)

The newly extended constructs

Choi & Chung (2013)

Perceived Social Capital (Benefits)

Subjective Norm

Attitude towards Social MediaPerceived Ease of

Use


Perceived Operational Risks

Perceived Business Risks

H5b

H4H3a

H1a

H2

H1bH3b

H5a


• Model Validation • According to similar studies in the past

literature

Face & Content Validity:

Construct Reliability & Validity

To import validated question items from past literature’s question pools that are related to each construct.

To interview industry executives to evaluate the question items’ fitness for the purpose of this research.

To use Likert’s scale of five levels of agreement to represent the experts’ evaluation.

To conduct a Pilot survey to a minimum sample


• Introduction• The Population, Sample & Demographics of the sample

Firm’s Size (Number of Employees)

Number of firms

1 – 25 66

26 – 100 131

More than 100 23

Table – 1: Size of sampled firms

Classification Number of firms

Unlimited floors 123

G + 12 floor 43

G + 4 floor 50

G + 1 floor 4

Table – 2: Classifications of sampled firms

471 Arch/Eng. firms which are actively operating as per Dubai Municipality.

264 firms agreed to participate in the main survey. Calculated for a confidence level of 95% and marginal error of 4%

220 managed to complete the questionnaire. 83.3% of response rate.

The Research Findings

• Representation of the Explanatory Power• The Explanation of Influence

0.427

Perceived Social Capital (Benefits)

Subjective Norm

Attitude towards Social Media 0.765Perceived Ease of Use 0.732

Perceived Usefulness 0.665 0.463

0.398

0.149

0.250.475

0.318

- 0.236

Perceived Operational Risks Perceived Business Risks


• The Resulted Formulae

where PEOU = Perceived Ease of Use; PU = Perceived Usefulness; SN = Subjective Norm; PSC = Perceived Social Capital; Err = Error Variance

Attitude = -0.236 (Business) + 0.25 (PEOU) + 0.149 (PU) + 0.318 (SN) + err

PU = 0.463 (PSC) + 0.398 (PEOU) + err

PEOU = -0.427 (Operational Risks) + 0.475 (PSC) + err


• Descriptive Analysis• Percentages from the Questionnaire’s

answers


• Descriptive Analysis• The Experts’ feedback

That the understandability applies only for the personal level. while on the commercial level, the experts believed the other way around.

The disagreement regarding the level of staff delegation to undertake social media communication on behalf of the firm, was attributed to different cultural and security backgrounds.

The disagreement regarding the Time management was attributed to the lack of policies and training.

Conclusions & Recommendations

• Reputation and Audience’s Opinion

The Attitude was 76.5% explained by the proposed model

Only Two constructs explained 55.4% of managers’ attitude towards social media. Business Risks & Subjective Norm

Managers perceived audience’s perspective about the firm, as essential.

• The audience’s perspective was a common priority existed within both constructs.

Managers perceived the reputational and security risks as the most concerning

• Those concerns had the maximum level of agreement by managers (PR_SOC_1, PR_SEC_1 and PR_SEC_3 ) showing a 100% agreement


• Prepare your firm to get the Benefits

Managers acknowledged the benefits of social media and linked them with ability to handle it.

• Firms acknowledged that they have to be prepared in terms of the availability of workforce and acquiring technical capabilities by which firms would consider social media easy to use.

Managers had comparable perceptions regarding Operational risks and benefits of social media.

• Manager were not over-attracted to engaging with social media, but at the same time they were not intimidated either. • Managerial perceptions of the Ease of Use can be influenced by operational concerns like time at work and availability of staff.

Managers admitted the need to policies and training to implement social media into their business.

• Policies are needed to govern the usage of social media at work and on behalf of the firm. While training is needed to master social media at a commercial level.

Managers perceived their staff as unprepared to communicate the firm’s audience.

• In terms of technical, marketing and security awareness. While reputational concerns were emphasized regarding staff delegation.


• Key Success Factors• Continuous Orchestration

Thank you Any Question?

Dr. Oday Aswad Mobile: +1 (613) 276 1391; +971 50 3156987

email: [email protected]

31st International Business Research ConferenceRyerson University - Toronto

toronto presentation - 07

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